


Of Fish and Fishermen

by Envoy



Category: DCU, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Good Cops and Bad Penguins, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:41:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Envoy/pseuds/Envoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything, Jim still struggles with his compulsion to do the right thing. Even when that thing risks bringing him much closer than he likes to Oswald Cobblepot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He has carried a hard hot weight in his gut for a while now. He's heard nothing of Penguin beyond the whispers that he's reinstated himself, for now at least, in his position at the pinnacle of a great many of Gotham's criminal enterprises. It suits them both, Jim suspects. It's easier not knowing, when the way it had been left - it had been so muddied, so tormenting. The ambiguity of his situation is something he doesn't have to face in his day to day life. It hasn't been hard to go back. To wear the suit of 'James Gordon: good man and honest cop' even now that it's a filthy lie, if it's what is necessary to continue doing all the work he has still to do for Gotham. There is so much still to do. His own conscience is no longer a priority, and he loses little sleep over this. And yet - he remembers the respectful way Oswald had proffered his hand to Lee in friendship, mild and unassuming and bearing no malice, and that sense of disquiet flutters outward from his stomach in a rush of tiny wings.

He wasn't exactly a guardian angel, in fact at times it had felt more like bargaining with some kind of Djinn. Making deals with some lesser devil that carried unspecified charges against his soul. But he had stepped in when things were desperate more than once. Even now, on rain darkened days away from the precinct and standing alone under some disused rusting fire escape, Jim has the vague comforting feeling that he is watched over.

It's dangerous. What he is about to do. It has dawned on him since that Oswald's early warning of a coming war had been nothing more than bait dangled in front of a hungry fish, and he'd bitten, oblivious to the fact that it would be a war of Oswald's making. Like everyone else, he had made the mistake of vastly underestimating the importance of a sickly little umbrella boy. And he's had the fishhook stuck in his mouth ever since. How he'd known even then the way Jim's mind worked he would probably never know, but he had played readily into Oswald's hands as he'd known he would. Thereby only helping to escalate the carnage he'd been so determined to control.

Jim had met psychopaths before. He recalls being sat across from Gruber in the dank bloodless walls of Arkham where he exuded a detached menace perfectly suited to that environment and is reaffirmed in his conviction that petulant, fiery, peculiar little Oswald Cobblepot is not this. For some reason the distinction seems very important. A lingering unease sits with him that Penguin be seen by the people of Gotham as a monster in the same mould as Galavan and perhaps it is this need for redress that brings him to his door. In any case, he would deliver his message because it was the right thing to do.

 

Penguin's elaborate crest lies limp, like it's been slept on more than once. His hair is carefully styled, but its upkeep has apparently been forgotten, contributing to a look that's more washed up seabird than elegant gentleman.

He smells like grief. There's a sharp sting of neglect from his neatly pressed and turned out suit when leaning in to shake hands, body odour and bad breath, that makes Jim a little light headed. A ripe, vinegary scent assaults him, followed by the ghost of boiled cabbage or something, that is unwholesome and intoxicating. He breaks away hastily to shake this sudden stupor off, and notices for the first time a jaundiced look to the deep shadows under Oswald's eyes. A dark rim of purple stains his teeth and the lining of his lips.

'Have you been drinking?'

He mentally kicks himself - great opening gambit, Gordon - because he hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory. At least he stops himself before redundantly pointing out that, ominous lighting aside, it was 10 in the morning.

Oswald expels a toxic, incredulous breath, his brittle politeness shattered in an instant during which he leans hungrily across the table, words spat with an intensity that sends specks of saliva shattering like shrapnel on the table.

'I have to ask, Jim. Do I mean anything at all to you?'

' _Mean_...? I- I don't know how to answer that.'

'No?' Beady eyes flash, pupils dilating and shrinking like hard little pips. 'You are still attributing Galavan's murder to pure necessity, then?'

His face shines with grim triumph for catching Jim in a lie, in an act of self-deception. Its oily sheen glows whitely and unhealthily under the low lights. Jim reels from the blow. Careful emphasis placed on the word _murder_ makes it glaringly obvious where the blame for that lies and just how _easy_ it is for Penguin to put this culpability into words. He _knows_ , of course, that Jim hasn't dared say it aloud.

'Don't worry,' he follows up witheringly, 'there are no eyes or ears in this establishment. You're quite safe.'

Jim suffers the familiar ringing white noise of residual panic in his ears which he has lived with since he put his finger to that trigger. Oswald's head tilts. A fondness creeps into his eyes, with the fluid and changeable expressiveness of his face that is like waves disturbing the surface of a still lake. And just like that it is the bereaved comforting the Officer; offering alms to him in his self-reproach, saying _I don't blame you, you haven't changed in my eyes, you are not fallen from grace_.

Sure enough, he gathers a wet rattling breath.

'I should thank-'

'No.'

Silence.

'It may be inappropriate, nevertheless, I am truly gratef-'

'Shut up. Please.'

As it happens, Jim doesn't blame himself. It was unforgiveable and he was unequivocally lost, but that it happened he did not regret one bit.

Here he was, after weeks of making no attempt at contact whatsoever, and doing nothing but continuing to evade his circumstances while an increasingly notorious criminal, once again, does the emotional legwork he is unprepared to do. Jim will always be a man of principle and enough is enough.

'What happened to you was wrong. We should have seen it in time to step in. I'm sorry.'

It's distasteful. Too little, much too late, so that it would be in better taste to say nothing at all. Which is the protocol he's been acting on up 'til now. But, really, fuck that.

Oswald stares down in silence. His breaths are thin and reedy and there's a one hundred percent chance he's concealing tears and Jim is about to blow up with pent up emotion.

When he opens his mouth it erupts in a barrage of words that is completely out of character but that he can't seem to halt.

'I know you think you laid your mother to rest when you avenged her death, but I also know you're not even nearly at peace with it - no, don't interrupt. I'm not talking about closure, I don't pretend for a second that concept would mean anything to someone like you.'

'Someone like me, Detective?'

He regards Jim with icy composure so glacial that were Jim paying attention he would recognise as on the point of fracture. His watery eyes gleam with contempt, cleaner and sharper than ever with the wash of tears, and Jim is sucked in to the whirlpool. Helplessly horribly magnetised.

'Something tells me you don't go in for that kind of psychobabble.'

Oswald sits straighter in his throne-like chair; a minor withdrawal, containing his ire for the time being.

'And yet, we move on. As you can see.'

'Yeah, we do. But if it really meant nothing to you anymore, you wouldn't look at me like you want to disembowel me when I mention your mother. Clearly, you haven't got this far on cold hard logic. You're impulsive, sensitive, short-tempered, erratic, _vindictive_...' he reaches, his emotional vocabulary grossly insufficient, only hoping Oswald's quick intellect will fill in the blanks. The disbelieving wonder dawning on his face suggests that it is. 'Surprising, I guess. Damnit, you know what I'm talking about because you _get feelings_ , right? That's how you're able to manipulate people. You get through life on your emotions, Oswald, you shouldn't deny them.'

The room falls silent to the echo of those amazingly trite words and Jim has to marvel at his own chutzpah.

'That is unusually perceptive, Jim. Perhaps if you have finished passing judgement on my life, you might get to the reason for your visit?'

Jim's breathless, relieved - relieved of a weight he's been carrying and of the fact that Oswald hasn't slit his throat for his insolence - and somewhat chastened by Oswald's mercy. He's acknowledged that Jim's words have cut deep but as good as bowed out, with the grace of a martial artist conceding defeat. He wonders, even, if there's a sort of gladness there that someone has even cared enough to bother understanding him.

He's clearly surprised that it's fallen to Jim - poor, simple Jim Gordon - to deliver the home truths, and yet flashes of a cautious happiness at this discovery pass fleetingly across his face in place of the disdain Jim expected. And that's a sort of kindness.

The barbed remark about his motives concerning Galavan was nothing; he could have hit back with any number of accusations. Jim's sure he's amassed an occult knowledge of the workings of his brain that would be entirely unfamiliar to Jim himself. But he just wipes the palms of faintly trembling hands against his thighs under the table and waits patiently for him to speak his piece.

'Uh, I know you'll have made arrangements, and you can tell me to fuck off and I won't bother you again. But I thought you might want something, you know, to honour her memory. I spoke with the council officials about erecting a plaque somewhere in the centre of Gotham, where the people will see it. I know you'll have things in order and I don't want to interfere, it's just... that sort of thing's hard to get approved without the right connections. Near impossible, actually. Even for you.'

He pinpoints the precise moment at which something flickers alight behind his eyes, like a backlit screen.

Jim trails off awkwardly, left only with an intimate silence that has him sitting rigidly and suddenly inexplicably tense as Oswald quietly contemplates him with wide and emotional eyes.

'That is decent of you, Jim. I think I would like that.'

That easy then.

'Good. Good.' He tries not to smile and goes for a sort of grim, awkward frown, rising soberly from the chair now that his business is done. Oswald stands abruptly and makes his usual stumbling movements around the table to unnecessarily show him out, but it seems he has other ideas because he grabs Jim's wrist just as he's turning to leave.

'I believe I have what would once have been called a choleric disposition.'

'Would it?'

Jim is lost here and Oswald's fingers are still a tight ring around his wrist but Oswald smiles with genuine mirth, his shining-eyed dejection heated momentarily by delight for the information he has to impart.

'In reference to your analysis. Perhaps it would help you categorise what you perceive as my... nature. One of the four temperaments postulated by Hippocrates, when people believed the character to be ruled by bodily fluids. Yellow bile in my case, I believe.'

Jim grimaces awkwardly.

'Nice.' Yellow bile sounds about right, he thinks, as Oswald's breath drifts moistly against his face. Trying not to think about bodily fluids.

'Perhaps just another way of expressing what Dr Thompkins so charmingly referred to as my sociopathic tendencies.'

And with that, Jim is released as Oswald turns sharply on his heel with that secret little smile and shuts the door in his face. He wanders somewhat hazily down the steps to the street, shaking his head in mild disbelief. Somehow Oswald had just managed the appearance of entirely humble self-criticism while simultaneously demolishing Lesley's entire rational  and supposedly irrefutable worldview.  


	2. Chapter 2

'You did _what_?!'

'Yeah, I did.'

'No no no no. You gotta make it crystal clear with guys like Penguin. It was a one time deal. We team up with that quirky little fruitcake when - and only when - the city is being overtaken by a murderous death cult.' Bullock tears a bite out of his huge sandwich mournfully. 'This is gonna give him all kinds of ideas...'

Doubts have crept in by this point. Maybe he should've continued to ignore rather than recognise and legitimise what they'd done. But he's not gonna give Harvey the satisfaction.

'Look, I don't think so. He's just a guy who's lost his mother.'

Harvey licks the mustard off his knuckles and jabs a judgemental finger in Jim's face.

'That is so like you. That's what the scheming little prick wants you to think.'

'He's a mess, Harv.'

But Bullock follows him doggedly through the front doors of the precinct, hovering around and refusing to be brushed off.

'Alright, so he has a screw loose? That's nothing new. So what?'

Jim shakes his head and ignores this, opting to open the newest file cluttering his already overfilled desk and hide his face from Harvey in there. The _so what_ echoes around his head and he's unable to concentrate.

'He has a... way of looking at the world that's... different. I dunno I... sorta respect that.'

His partner looks up abruptly and considers Jim across the table.

'You mean like a murdering nutjob kinda way?'

In total opposition to his instincts Jim realises Cobblepot's mind is a thing he has come to value; started in some mad way to think the world would be a little impoverished without.

'You and me, we'd go out in a blaze of glory because it flatters the ideal we have of ourselves.'

Bullock raises his eyebrows as if to say _speak for yourself hotshot_ , but Jim knows BS when it's staring him in the face with a bit of lettuce stuck between its teeth.

'Yes you would, Harvey. Everyone wants to be a hero. Except... Penguin would scrape and grovel and debase himself, survive by any means necessary, because he wants to live. He has no illusions.'

'You like him 'cus he's pathetic? Jimbo, you are more perverse than I've given you credit for.'

'Hey, I said I respected it, not that I liked it. Will you stop looking at me like I've sprouted horns? He's an... interesting person, that's all.'

Harvey chomps down on his sandwich with what can only be described as melancholy.

'This is a worrying development.'

 

 

 

_Have Mercy._

_Have mercy_ is what Jim had heard back then on the waterfront; Mooney's snitch trembling at the end of the barrel of his gun, their toes clinging to the edge of concrete. And here he was trying to have mercy, when you really got down to it, trying to practice a little kindness. He would be having a kid. A kid should be brought into a world with kindness.

Harvey had covered for him when he'd said he'd needed the car for some 'unofficial business'. Not without a word or three hundred about Penguin having plenty of his own illusions. Like illusions of importance and illusions about his 'special relationship' with Jim, something about how Jim should watch his back around that grasping, puffed-up, mean little... about which time he had zoned out and made his exit.

That snitch that he had plunged into the icy waters at the dockside is at this moment dismounting from the back of a blacked out vehicle some way from where Jim stands, clad inconspicuously in dark clothes and recognisable through the sheet rain only by his stumbling exit and ungainly steps from the car. He lurches and rights himself inelegantly as the driver pulls away from the kerbside and shrouds him in a thick grey cloud of exhaust fumes. Jim's never seen a more acute embodiment of grief than the man walking across the small patch of grass towards the wall where two workmen are erecting Gertrude's modest plaque. It bears only the small message he had conveyed to Jim over the phone: her name and dates and the words _Beloved Mother_. Oswald's shoes shine beetle-black with moisture from the turf as he makes his unsteady but composed way forwards, leaning heavily on his umbrella like a cane.

Jim stands back, careful to appear unaffiliated with anyone in the vicinity in case they're observed but he feels sure Oswald has seen him, just as he knows he would recognise that small hobbling figure anywhere. Worryingly, he's probably more instantly recognisable to Jim now than anyone he knows - the sort of familiarity that has you caught short by a movement in your peripherals. Not even Lee is on his radar to that extent.

Feeling that this sort of undercover stuff is not his forte, he steps up behind the lonely figure.

'I figure we don't have much time,' he breathes behind Cobblepot's shoulder, just loud enough to be heard. It feels like standing out on the pier all over again: exposed, endangered, unwillingly bound to Oswald by something he doesn't understand. 'In the open like this. Barnes has people on the lookout.'

He has no idea if Oswald has heard him or not. He neither turns nor acknowledges Jim's presence, but continues to stand morosely in front of the plaque, propped up by the umbrella as rain pours over his head and soaks his shoulders. Jim moves back again and leaves him to it. He'll stand here and keep an eye on Oswald for a few more minutes, just in case. He tugs his collar up around his neck, glances at his watch and gauges the time he has left before Harvey's half-assed excuses get tired and Barnes becomes suspicious.

When the rain has begun to run down the back of his collar and he feels clammy with cold, Jim figures he's done his bit. He's already started walking away before he looks back over his shoulder to see Oswald stood there alone in the rain, limp as a ragdoll. For a long moment he hesitates, torn between the car to his left and the miserable sight to his right.

_Oh, fuck._

'Hey, look, you probably shouldn't be alone right now. You want to go somewhere?'

He doesn't think Oswald even hears him, too far gone for that, which is good because that had sounded horribly like a romantic assignation. He turns to Jim unseeing, blank eyed, remaining upright apparently only through concerted effort. So Jim bears him away, crippled and crumpled by loss, across the courtyard and into the back of his patrol car. Blessedly shielded by the panels of rain and the complete emptiness of the streets, Jim prepares to drive to god knows where with a known felon in tow and no intention whatsoever of taking him back to the precinct.

He swerves on the wet roads, circling the blocks repeatedly as darkness falls around them waiting for a bright idea to strike and cursing under his breath.

'Jim?' A small voice from the backseat. 'I'd like to sleep.'

He bristles with anger - who does he think he is ordering Jim around like another of his henchmen? - dampened only by the exhaustion of Oswald's voice. He is unmistakably a man at the end of his rope and Jim needs to do something with him now. Escorting him back to his latest residence in a borrowed patrol car is out of the question, and Jim doesn't feel inclined to leave him to his own devices in this state at any rate. There's only one thing for it.

He's made his boundaries so abundantly clear many times that any normally socially adjusted person would have backed far off, and yet here he is. With an increasing feeling of dread and a watery Oswald pale as a ghost swaying on his doorstep while Jim searches his pockets for his door keys. He's finally made his way into Jim's home. And he has to admit it's not really Cobblepot's doing in the end but his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was originally two chapters but just keeps getting longer even though the show has left me way behind. I'm a bit slow with the updates but everyone's comments are really appreciated :)

Despite his state Oswald has the decency to hover in the hallway of Jim's apartment looking somewhat uncomfortable to be there, which Jim finds a little gratifying. He's shaken by a multitude of tiny tremors that he holds back with an arm wrapped around himself. He's also wet through and soaking a puddle into the centre of Jim's rug.

Jim waves an arm impatiently in the general direction of the only room that isn't his bedroom while forlornly searching it with his eyes for somewhere to hang his wet jacket.

'Come in then.'

Obediently, he moves forward a couple of paces between piles of boxes on the floor. This really wasn't much of a home. Jim's mind wanders with a pang of affection to Leslie and her patience and the warm lighting of her large kitchen. Having kicked off his shoes and lost his jacket, he finally rests his attention fully on his odd house guest. A chill trickles slowly down his spine when he sees the utterly vacant look in Oswald's eyes. White as two strange fruit, they glow eerily, haloed by wet colourless lashes. Jim clears his throat awkwardly.

'You should... get yourself together. The washroom's through there.'

'Oh... yes.'

Only then does he seem to register where he is. They're both tense with each other, their sudden confinement in the same house making their complete difference more starkly obvious than usual. Soaked and glowing, he looks alien in this environment, there's no better word for it. He speaks with distaste and a little irritated shake of the head Jim has seen before; like he's shaking off the outside world and all its nuisances. He sees clearly in that second every interaction Oswald has ever made playing along these same lines of complete discomfort and alienation, of reminding himself that other people and other people's etiquette exists and that he must play along. It's kind of sad and confusing and Jim doesn't really know what to make of it. But he disappears into the tiny bathroom without a fuss.

Would he just have sat there in sodden clothes until he developed hypothermia? In all probability he would, Jim reasons. He debates for a minute between the equally unpleasant options of giving Penguin his own clothes to wear or having him sat in his living room in only a towel. No. And no. When he emerges having obeyed Jim's request to at least appear somewhat normal, Jim's decided that a large blanket will have to do.

'Err, sit.'

He pours them both a stiff drink from a bottle of bourbon in the top cupboard. Oswald smiles thinly, accepting the drink but swishing it half heartedly around the glass. He's combed his wet hair flat to his head and he looks very small and fatigued.

'Have you got anything stronger?'

'Oh. Right.' Jim feels stupid. Of course.

'I think I have some sleeping pills in a drawer somewhere...'

He nods, curtly.

'I would appreciate that. I just wish to sleep undisturbed.'

The pills are at the bottom of a drawer by his bedside, under some old socks. He leaves his hands buried in there for a minute, just to take a breath. He knows that feeling Oswald is talking about - when exhaustion has worn you down to such a degree that everything becomes impossible, even sleep. It was a familiar state in his army days. Although with his leg and general lack of self-care, Oswald... well, it doesn't bear thinking about really.

He doesn't even look at the pills before washing them down with whisky. Either he trusts Jim completely or he simply doesn't care. Definitely the latter. Thank goodness he was a complete wreck and would be unconscious very soon so Jim could put this whole thing behind him.

No such luck. With dismay he realises that Penguin has finally let go of all composure and is sobbing pitifully into his hands. Jim stands paralysed, imagining what would happen if Gotham's most wanted criminal had a heart attack or something _here in his apartment_. Wrapped in his goddamn blanket. Oh god, what has he got himself into.

His cries are horrible and jarring. They ring out in the silence of the room with a knife-edge sharpness, relatively quiet only because he has no energy. Just leave the room, Jim thinks, he'll wear himself out eventually...

'Ah, look, you shouldn't - you'll work yourself up.'

He is batted back with a disconsolate wave of an arm, Penguin's black head bowed over his knees.

'Does it hurt?'

He raises his face to Jim then, freckles blotched and reddened across his cheeks.

' _Yes_.'

And he doesn't mean his leg, he means everything.

'Okay. I'm not really good with...'

'No, I'm aware of that Jim,' Oswald snaps. For a moment, there he is - spiky and angry - and then his face crumples again in a fresh wash of tears.

It's true; he avoids shows of emotion everywhere in his life. With Barbara, with Lee. Just as he begins to feel entirely redundant, Oswald speaks up again, small and quiet.

'Please, don't think I'm not thankful for today. I am. You have just caught me at a low point.'

Oh no.

'I didn't really... I mean, it was for your mother.'

It's like squeezing words out through a cheese grater. He's glad that he sounds cold, clunky, detached. It has to be clear that this act of goodwill is in no way a sign of the 'good man' Oswald once believed him to be, and is definitely not a favour for a friend that can be bartered or exploited. Or anything more.

He seems to accept this without complaint. Maybe the medicine is taking effect; his clear eyes are clouded. He droops forward in the seat like something wilted. Jim's never known anyone to be so unguarded so often - so openly a mess. In the time he's known him he's seen Oswald rocket between two extremes, from on top of the world to the lowest of lows and back again. He honestly can't imagine feeling that intensely about anything.

Oswald wipes his nose with a shaking hand.

'I understand. You needn't fear being caught up in a exchange of favours, your wariness is unnecessary.'

A few words appear to drain him completely, leaving only a long tearful sigh. He obviously believes his days of power play to be far behind him.

'You miss her.'

'Every day.' The last sobs he can muster shake him from head to toe. 'I have no one. Nothing.'

Eventually, Jim crouches carefully in front of him and angles his head to cut into Oswald's line of vision, making sure their eyes meet.

'This isn't a guarantee and it isn't a promise. But right now you're not alone.'

His gaze is long and piercing, even drugged and on the edge of sleep.

'I thought I knew what to expect from you, Jim Gordon.'

'I never know what to expect from you,' he quips.

That raises a prim, tight smile from Oswald, who appreciates his dry humour. His head is slipping back against the couch and his voice sounds faint and faraway.

'But you do, Jim. I have only ever wanted your friendship.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the end?? I don't really know where to go from here, but who knows.

Jim's perched on the arm of an armchair across from his couch watching the slow rise and fall of Oswald's breathing, apparently sleeping although he can't be sure. It's approaching midnight now and rain thrums against the windows. He's not sure what he's waiting for, feeling too uneasy still to withdraw to his bed with Penguin here unwatched and unguarded.

_I have only ever wanted your friendship._

Is that entirely true, though?

He's musing idly and somewhat morosely when with the soft pop of several blown fuses the room is plunged into abrupt darkness. Jim panics.

Panics - and reacts instantly with the reflexes hardwired in him from many years of service in dangerous situations. He's on his feet with one hand on his service revolver, ready for fight or flight, although he can't see a damn thing.

'Fuck, crap, _fuck_.'

He hits his shin against the edge of a table and cracks his head on the ceiling lamp with a loud crash, his thoughts spinning from -- _Barnes: I'm caught--_ to -- _ambush_ \-- to -- _trap--_. But none of these scenarios quite ring true and for a second he's completely bewildered. What's going on?

He leans on the furniture for support, feeling dizzy with panic.

Then - a cold hand presses down upon the back of his own. For a second he'd forgotten he wasn't alone in the room.

'Relax, Jim.' He sounds soft and woolly, like he's just been woken by Jim's racket. Jim had apparently strayed far off any path he'd ever outlined for his life because right now the sound of Oswald Cobblepot's half-asleep voice was hugely reassuring and gradually easing him down from the heights of alarm. 'It's just a power cut. We're safe, and warm and dry. I won't try to stab you in the night, or steal your silverware.'

He breathes slowly and has to acknowledge that sounds sensible.

'Yeah, I know that. Anyway... I haven't got any silverware.'

An odd thing happens; a pause, and then they're both laughing at the same time. Oswald's faint tinkling giggle and Jim's dry, amused cough drifting and merging quietly in the darkness. The cold press of his hand. Tentative. Lingering.

He thinks about going to check the fuse box.

'I should- '

'Sit.' In the dark he can hear the squeak of springs as Oswald shifts and pats the seat at his side. 'Not a promise, just one night, remember?'

He turns Jim's own words back on him with a teasing lightness and another chill runs tingling up his spine. Is he losing it, hearing double entendres where there can't be any? He thinks, wildly, what if Cobblepot's been in control the whole time - the grieving wreck nothing more than an act - and I'm being played like a fool? But that's so ungenerous he regrets it immediately.

Somehow, he finds himself sitting down beside Oswald in the dark. The echo of their laughter hangs in the air.

'Thank you for having me in your home, Jim.'

'Not much of a home. More like a place to pass out really.'

'Well, in that case, I couldn't think of anywhere more appropriate.'

The rain drums on the roof. He's so very tired. Maybe this is all part of Oswald's dastardly plan but, frankly, he can't find it in him to care. At least he has no masquerade to perform here. He's a hopelessly bad liar.

Before he knows it he's drifting off where he's sat, only to wake blearily at some later hour and find Oswald slid against his side, head on his shoulder. He can't quite muster the strength to move him.

 

 

 

 

He's leaving when Jim wakes foggily on the couch half covered by the blanket he'd given Oswald last night. He screws his eyes against the half-light, making out the shape of him stood by the door. He wishes he hadn't woken up.

'What will you do?'

'I don't know. What will you do, Jim? Will you find Lee?'

You know she's better without you, this says. You know she can't accept the man you've become.

He hates that it stings. That the bitterness hurts after the last night because it had seemed impossibly comfortable and he'd slept sounder than he had in weeks. Which he can't possibly accept. So he grits his teeth antagonistically and says nothing.

Oswald looks him up and down.

'You like me better when I'm desperate, hm?'

Jim reflects.

'Yeah, I guess I do. Take care of yourself, okay.'

Alone again, he closes his stinging eyes against the sun rising over the Gotham skyline.

He hates those damn green leather gloves, they haunt him, the shape of two hands raised in surrender ghosts his dreams. He hates how Oswald knows everything about him.


End file.
